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Lars-Anders Baer, Nordic Saami Council, Sweden
As a member of the Saami Council, Mr. Baer was involved in the pan-Saami movement in the early the 1970’s and was the chairman of the council when the Saami population in Russia was integrated into the pan-Saami movement during the glasnost period at the end of the 1980s. As a key figure in the Saami Council, he was also involved in setting up the development aid programme, which is an indigenous to indigenous programme in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Has been involved in the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations from 1983 onwards.
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Arja Rautio, MD, PhD, ERT, Center for Arctic Medicine, Thule Institute, Finland
Arja Rautio, research professor, MD, PhD, ERT, has been working in the field of circumpolar health since 2006. She is a director of the Center for Arctic Medicine (www.oulu.fi/arctichealth) at the Thule Institute (www.oulu.fi/thule) in the University of Oulu (Finland). She is leading a PhD graduate program in the Thule Institute, several research projects and the international Master’s program of Circumpolar Health and Wellbeing (http://www.oulu.fi/degree/hw). She is a chair of the University of the Arctic Thematic Network of Health and Wellbeing in the Arctic (www.uarctic.org). Her research focuses are in climate change and human health, social exclusion and indigenous health and wellbeing.
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Roberto Delgado Jr, PhD, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, USA
Dr. Roberto Delgado is currently an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation (NSF). He is a biological anthropologist with expertise in animal behavior, communication, and evolutionary ecology. While at Duke University, he examined the function of adult male long calls on social organization and reproductive strategies among wild orangutan populations in Borneo and Sumatra. His subsequent research while at Hunter College CUNY and USC addressed the demographic and ecological sources of behavioral flexibility, geographic variation, and local adaptation by non-human primates in response to anthropogenic threats and climate change. In addition to extensive fieldwork throughout the Neotropics, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, Roberto is actively involved in wildlife conservation and management issues, and co-chairs the AAAS Biodiversity Affinity Group. He has worked closely with indigenous communities on land-use planning and population monitoring, and has policy interests in biodiversity, ecosystem services, environmental sustainability, international development, enhancing scientific literacy, and furthering minority representation in STEM fields.
At NSF, Roberto is working in the Division of Polar Programs, supporting the goals and activities of the Arctic Sciences Section. In this capacity, he is engaging with the US State Department in Joint Committee Meetings on Science & Technology Cooperation agreements with Arctic nations, working with the US Arctic Research Commission and Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC), serving as co-lead on the IARPC Arctic Communities Implementation Team, participating in the Arctic Policy Group, and contributing to international working groups on biodiversity and sustainable development for the Arctic Council.
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Heidi Eriksen, MD, PhD, Utsjoki Health Centre, Finland
Heidi A. Eriksen, MD, PhD, is an indigenous Sámi, working as a general practitioner and chief medical officer in Utsjoki, her home and the northernmost municipality of Finland with indigenous Sámis as majority of population. She was raised in Utsjoki, having a river Sámi background. She has worked at the Utsjoki health care centre since 2005. After finishing her doctoral thesis in a biochemical topic in 2010, her research interest has focused on the health, disease and wellbeing of Sámi and other indigenous peoples. This interest has risen through her basic work with the Sámi population and noticing the lack of stewardship of Sámi people in the health systems, lack of systematically collected data of the health issues and wellbeing of the Sámis. Heidi A. Eriksen has been an elected member of Sámi Parlament 2008-2011 and a member in the social and health board of Sámi Parlament 2008-2011 and 2012-2015. She has been a member of advisory boards of several projects concerning Sámi health and social issues.
Anna Afanasyeva, Indigenous Peoples Adviser, International Barents Secretariat, Norway
Currently working as Indigenous Peoples Adviser at the International Barents Secretariat (IBS), in Kirkenes, Norway. In spring 2013 defended the Master of Philosophy in Indigenous Studies at the Arctic University of Tromsø on the topic of Forced relocations of the Kola Sámi people: background and consequences, in which discusses implementation of the Soviet policies of forced relocations as associated with the new society-building patterns, restructuring traditional economies and need for active cultural and language preservation for the Kola Sámi today. In the years 2006 – 2010 worked in the field of endangered languages documentation as a student assistant in the research project - Kola Saami Documentation project, based at Department of Northern European Studies, Humboldt University, in Berlin, mainly dealing with fieldwork activity, creating audio recordings of Sámi speakers, annotation and preparation of documented language materials for linguistic analyses. From summer 2014 will be working as P.h.D scholar supported by the Research Council of Norway at the Centre for Sámi Studies, at the Arctic University of Tromsø. The topic of the study will be devoted to analysis of the Assimilation policies in education imposed on the Kola Sámi in 1900’s – 2010’s. I am a Kola Sámi myself, that is why I found research in indigenous communities accounting on the needs and interests of its community members to be extremely important.
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Gail Fondahl, PhD, University of Northern British Columbia, Canada
Gail Fondahl is a Professor of Geography at the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada’s northernmost research university. She currently serves as the president of the International Arctic Social Sciences Association (2011-2014). As well, she is Canada’s representative to, and Vice-Chair of, the International Arctic Science Committee’s Social & Human Sciences Working Group (2011-2015), and Chair of the Social, Economic and Cultural Expert Group of the Arctic Council’s Sustainable Development Working Group (2013-2015). Gail’s research has focused the legal geographies of indigenous rights to land in the Russian North, the historical geography of reindeer husbandry in the Russian North, and co-management of resources and of research in northern British Columbia.